Lotteries' Lure Of Easy Money -- It's A Bad Gamble For Everyone

LOS ANGELES — Fed by the astounding profits of California's new megalottery, state lotteries are racing past casino operations to become the biggest moneymakers on the U.S. gambling scene today.

Last year the casinos of Nevada and Atlantic City siphoned $4.3 billion into the pockets of gambling-house owners. It's a massive industry by anyone's standards.

But if you count the $3.7 billion net ''take'' of the 18 state lotteries that were operating last year, and add what five new lottery states will bring in this year, lotteries clearly have hit the jackpot. They're reaping the biggest gambling dollars ever in the United States.

Lottery backers would have us believe that the big winners are the recipients of earmarked lottery proceeds -- youngsters whose schools are enriched, the elderly whose programs are funded, the economic development, conservation and highway funds subsidized -- all good causes that would have to be financed out of taxes. So lotteries, it is claimed, represent billions of dollars in taxpayer relief.

Why say a negative word about this institution? Because, say us crabby naysayers, making the state an accomplice to gambling involves a host of hidden costs and pitfalls.

Compulsive gambling leads the perils list. With their incessant hoopla and publicity over one new ''game'' after another, lotteries expose millions of people, including many who would never gamble otherwise, to the lure of the games. Five of six lottery players, the Los Angeles Times discovered in a late June poll, have not played other games.

Ironically, some potential compulsive gamblers are among the schoolchildren the lottery funds are earmarked to assist. Among 800 high- school students Jacobs interviewed before the lottery began, 5 percent admitted their gambling was already ''out of control,'' 1 percent were members of Gamblers Anonymous and 7 percent admitted one or both of their parents were compulsive gamblers. Indeed, while state lottery commissions argue their games are harmless, at least four lottery states -- New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland -- have set up special programs to aid compulsive gamblers.

Lotteries' next big danger: taking money from low-income people who can least afford to gamble their rent or grocery money. Research shows the heaviest lottery ticket buyers are secretaries, factory and construction workers, and retail clerks.

The money lotteries take in isn't spare change. Last year the Washington, D.C., lottery took in an average of $176 for every resident in the district. If that's the average, it's likely some poor families are losing thousands on the games annually.

California's ''Big Spin'' quickly turned up winners who were illegal aliens, many in poor-paying jobs, some subsidized by the state on welfare. In effect, the state has enacted a massive regressive tax, sugar-coating it as fun and needed for education.

Despite their meteoric rise, lotteries represent a small portion of total state- and local-government revenues -- from 2.5 percent in Maryland down to less than 1 percent in Rhode Island and Vermont. California's lottery profits will be used for education, but will add only $187 to the $3,573 state average expenditure on each student, a drop in the bucket according to many educators. There's another grim possibility: Citizens may believe that once the game is subsidizing a noble cause such as education, no more taxpayer effort is required.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Lotteries cheapen, and then trivialize, civic investments. Meanwhile, they get glitzier, the pots get bigger and the buyer lines grow.

California's single jackpot prize could reach $100 million. ''Lottery officials may have to rent Nevada to store all the money,'' quips one reporter here. The nagging question: How will it pay the rent?